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South African Supreme Court Justice Edwin Cameron Speaks at the Mailman School of Public Health |
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Renowned Ethicist Dr. Peter Singer Speaks at the Mailman School |
South African Supreme Court Justice Edwin Cameron Speaks at the Mailman School of Public Health
Edwin Cameron, an openly gay Justice in the Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa and the first public official in his country to publicly reveal his HIV status, addressed a full house at the Mailman School on October 19 when he came to speak about his recently published book, Witness to AIDS. The audience was filled with faculty, students, and staff from across the University who listened to the compelling account of his 19 years of living with HIV.
In 1986, Mr. Cameron learned he was HIV positive. In 1997, he went public with his condition, thrusting himself into the midst of a national debate over the AIDS crisis that has affected millions of South African lives. In his book, Mr. Cameron struggles with the meaning of HIV/AIDS, his own lingering death, and his efforts to address issues of discrimination and the barriers to treatment that are closely tied to the AIDS epidemic.
During his discussion at the Mailman School, Mr. Cameron emphasized the need to "de-stigmatize" the disease by altering the public perception that having AIDS is shameful. Because drugs are now available to treat the disease, millions of lives can be prolonged so long as people feel no shame in seeking proper care. According to Mr. Cameron, "Stigma equals death."
In addition to writing about his personal experiences, Mr. Cameron has devoted himself to advancing the rights of South Africans through his legal practice and public advocacy, both under the apartheid regime and during the post-apartheid era. In recent years, he has authored legal opinions and shared personal testimonies that give hope to advancing progressive ethical and human rights approaches to the epidemic within South Africa and throughout the world.
The Mailman School would like to recognize the Kaiser Family Foundation for sponsoring Mr. Cameron's visit to the U.S., and special thanks to Richard Parke, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Sociomedical Sciences, and Robert Sembe, a senior staff associate in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences, who were instrumental in bringing Mr. Cameron to the Mailman School.
Renowned Ethicist Dr. Peter Singer Speaks at the Mailman School
On November 10, Peter Singer, PhD, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and a laureate professor at the University of Melbourne's Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, presented research from his forthcoming book, The Ethics of What We Eat, at the Mailman School's 13th Granville H. Sewell Distinguished Lecture in Environmental Health Sciences.
Students, faculty, and members of the public filled the auditorium to listen to Dr. Singer speak about his book, co-authored by Jim Mason, which explores the practices of the industrialized food industry.
On an environmental level, Dr. Singer argues that the industrialized farming and meat-industry practices used to support the average American diet are wasteful. Citing statistics from his research, he claims that seventy percent of U.S. grain is fed to animals, with an average protein outcome of one kilogram of meat for every six kilograms of feed protein used. Dr. Singer maintains that while the protein-outcome ratio varies by product, usable protein yields per acre of certain vegetables, such as soybeans, is far more efficient than that of meat.
Moving beyond efficiency comparisons and computations, Dr. Singer highlighted the detrimental effect industry waste has on local ecosystems, citing the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico caused by fertilizer and manure run-off from farms along the Mississippi. In addition to killing off ecosystems, hormones swept away in manure from farm run-off have been known to produce endocrine effects in fish, changing their epigenetic expression and causing the male fish to become more feminine, and vice versa.
Dr. Singer also questions the ethics of factory farms raising cattle, chickens, swine, and other animals for food. Presenting photos collected-some surreptitiously-from his and other's research, Dr. Singer showed factory-raised animals nervously gnawing on metal bars, inhabiting tiny cages, and standing on metal grating over mountains of manure. According to Dr. Singer, the result of publishing such graphic photos and research is raising public awareness about the food industry, particularly in Europe, where governments are in the process of phasing out some of the industry's more inhumane practices.
As an ethicist, Dr. Singer supports the consumption of food produced with more humane and environmentally sustainable methods, such as organic and locally produced products. Although he cautions that in some cases organic and free-range farms may use energy inefficiently, choosing to eat organically raised vegetables, grains, and meat is, in his opinion, more ethical than consuming mass-produced food products.
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